Surviving a Heart Attack: Sharon Cotterman Tells Her Story

Sixty-one-year-old Sharon Cotterman of Kansas
City woke up at 2:30 a.m. on the morning of
November 15, 2000, feeling nauseated and hot.
She and her husband Brant were visiting friends in
Palm Desert, and they had been out to dinner the
previous evening. “It’s probably something I ate last
night,” she told herself, as she walked to the bathroom
to try to vomit.

Returning to bed a few minutes later, she tried to get
back to sleep. But she was uncomfortable and she felt
restless. There was also a strange tightness in her chest.
Finally, at 6:30 a.m., she went back to the bathroom to
try to vomit again. This time when she stood up, she
knew something was terribly wrong. She turned to her
husband and said, “Brant, I really don’t feel good.” And
with that she collapsed into his arms.

Brant frantically called 911, and within minutes the
paramedics arrived. They put Sharon on a stretcher,
and raced her to Eisenhower’s Emergency Department
(ED), calling ahead to alert the ED that they had a life-threatening
situation. “On the way to Eisenhower
Medical Center,” Sharon recalls, “I couldn’t move, and
I couldn’t talk. But I remember the paramedics yelling,
‘We’re losing her; we’re losing her.’”

Once in the Emergency Department, Sharon
remembers being raced down a long hallway with her
husband running along side trying to kiss her. “The
next thing I knew, I woke up in the cardiac cath lab.”
[Ed. Note: A cardiac catheterization, or cath, lab is a
room equipped with radiology equipment where a
catheter is inserted into the heart to obtain information
about the coronary arteries.] “There were nurses
around me and Dr. Lê was there,” Sharon continues. “I
said to the nurses, ‘Who’s that young man?’ And the
nurses replied, ‘That’s the man who saved your life.’”

Khôi M. Lê, MD, a Board Certified Interventional
Cardiologist at the Desert Cardiology Center located
on the Eisenhower Medical Center campus,
remembers that morning. He had just finished another
procedure in the cath lab when Sharon was brought in
at 7:54 a.m. “She was immediately cleaned and
prepped,” Dr. Lê says, “and we started the case at
8:03 a.m, nine minutes after she was brought into the cath
lab. The first thing we did was put in a pacemaker
because her heart rate was too slow. It was down in
the 30s. By 8:07 a.m., the pacemaker was in, and her
heart rate was in the 60s. Then we took pictures of her
coronary arteries. We knew she was having a heart
attack. We just had to confirm which vessel was
involved. We found that she had 100 percent blockage
of the right coronary artery.”

By 8:15 a.m., only 21 minutes after her
arrival, Dr. Lê and the cath lab team had the vessel open with normal blood flow
restored. “Everybody exhaled at that point,” Dr. Lê says. He then put in a
stent to make sure that area remained stable and didn’t close back up again. “The
stent was in at 8:25 a.m.,” Dr. Lê says. “So, essentially,
the case was done at that point.” Not only did the
timely procedure save Sharon’s life, the speed with
which it was done prevented Sharon’s heart from
sustaining any lasting damage. “We’re incredibly
blessed at Eisenhower to have an exemplary cath lab
crew,” asserts Dr. Lê. “The nurses and technologists are
smart, reliable, and caring individuals who work
together extremely efficiently.”

Sharon was not an obvious candidate for a heart
attack. She was, in fact, in perfect health with excellent
blood chemistry and no history of heart disease in her
family. Her parents had lived into their 90s.
Furthermore, she had just had a complete physical,
including a stress test, at home in Kansas City, and had
passed with flying colors. “At no time that morning did
I think I was having a heart attack,” Sharon says. “On
the way to the hospital, my chest began to hurt, and I
remember complaining about that, but even then I
didn’t think it was a heart attack.”

Today, Sharon and Brant spend the winter at their
home in Palm Desert. “We moved here because I
wanted to be near Dr. Lê and Eisenhower Medical
Center and the excellent medical care that they
provide,” Sharon says.

Sharon—now 65 years old—exercises six days a
week. “For a long time after my heart attack, I was
afraid to do anything,” she says. “And Brant was
always tense about letting me go out alone.” To ease
his fears, Brant bought an Automatic External
Defibrillator (AED) unit and completed a training
course in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and
AED use. Brant was the first person in Kansas City
trained to use AED—not in a medical field—for
personal use.

“I think he still has some fear,” Sharon continues.
“Overall, though, I feel great, and I really do owe it all
to Dr. Lê and Eisenhower Medical Center.”

Reflecting on that November morning, Dr. Lê notes,
“If Sharon had not been brought immediately to
Eisenhower Medical Center, she probably wouldn’t
have survived. I’m glad we were here and prepared,”
he continues. “Of all the things you can do and feel
good about yourself at the end of the day, this is right
up there at the top.”